


to know you all wrong

by spiekiel



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Witness Protection, M/M, Witness Protection, really mild E
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:29:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiekiel/pseuds/spiekiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They break apart long enough for Steve to say, "You got shot, by the way."</p><p>(Danny is in Witness Protection, Steve is a teenage delinquent, and everyone does dumb shit in high school. But really it's a heck of a lot more complicated than that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	to know you all wrong

**Author's Note:**

> so totally un-beta'd

 

Danny has gotten awful good at juggling juice boxes.  

 

He doesn’t view it as a particularly useful skill – not since Mattie decided he was too old for Minute Maid and started chugging Red Bull like it was his job – but it still helps sometimes.Like now – when he’s sandwiched between Abby and Katie in economy class during lunchtime, goldfish spilled in his lap and a smear of grape jelly across his tee shirt, an hour to go until landing. 

 

“Danno,” says Katie.She sounds tired – her voice carries the same lilt as her drooping pigtails, weighted down by her big purple scrunchies and the events of the past few weeks.“Can I have an apple one?”

 

“Sure, monkey.”Danny twists around the seat-back tray table to grab yet another juice box out of his bag on the floor.He pops the straw in and then hands it to Katie, who grabs it eagerly before tucking back into her chair, half of which is taken up by her favorite stuffed animal – a red triceratops, worn around the edges by its five years in her company.  

 

There’s a weight against his arm on his other side, and when he looks down Abby’s slumped against him, one hand bunched in his sleeve.“Can I have another sandwich?” she asks.  

 

She’s already put down the two that he packed for her with an appetite that he’s growing to expect from her, and all he’s got left is a bag of orange slices.“You already ate yours, Abs,” he says.“I’ve got oranges, though, if you want them.”

 

Abby sticks out her lower lip in a childish pout.“But Mattie’s not eating his.Can’t I have it?”

 

Danny retrieves the PB&J in question from the food bag while Abby watches in anticipation.He leans across her into the aisle.“Mattie,” he says, trying to get his brother’s attention.

 

Mattie doesn’t seem to hear, his ears covered by a set of sound-canceling headphones.Danny reaches out and taps his shoulder.Mattie looks over at the tap, but doesn’t bother removing his headphones.Danny holds up the sandwich in silent question, and Mattie shrugs.

 

Danny sits back in his own seat.“Heaven knows how I’m supposed to interpret that,” he says to himself, but hands the sandwich over to Abby anyways.

 

He looks back over at his younger brother – fourteen and wide-eyed, despite his attempts to look anything but, his hair cut in a trendy swoop across his forehead, hands buried in the pockets of his black hoodie.He looks uncomfortable, but then, he doesn’t really ever look comfortable, and Danny doesn’t know if, at this particular moment, Mattie’s tense shoulders should be credited to the two US Marshals sitting next to him, or to something else entirely.

 

The overhead pings.“In just a minute, we’ll be coming through the cabin one last time for any trash you wish to discard,” comes the flight attendants.“Anything you don’t intend to take with you once we land in Albuquerque should be given to the flight attendants now.”

 

Danny busies himself with collecting the cumulated trash from Abby and Katie’s lunch rampage, and tries not to think to hard about – 

 

Albuquerque, New Mexico.

 

* * *

 

Danny’s month starts off like this -  

 

“Danny,” someone’s saying urgently.“Danny, get up.”

 

He blinks the final dregs of sleep blearily from his eyes to see – what else? – his dad standing over him, shaking his shoulder, a sawed-off shotgun in one hand.  

 

It’s dark, the only light in Danny’s small bedroom coming from the glow of his alarm clock and the scant few rays of moonlight managing to sneak past the closed blinds.He can barely make out his father’s face, but he looks scared, grab-the-Molotov-cocktails scared.The expression makes Danny’s skin crawl, sets his stomach roiling.

 

“Get Mattie and your sisters up to the attic,” his father instructs frantically.“Don’t make a sound, and don’t come down until I say so.Pull the stairs up, don’t put them down for anybody but me.”

 

Danny lies motionless, his groggy brain straining to process the situation.His father gives him a jolting shake, half-yanking him up out of the bed.

 

“Go, Danny, now,” he urges.Danny scrambles out of bed, gingerly, like he’s unsure of where to place his feet.“Now,” his dad snaps again.

 

Danny hurries out the door.His heart has finally woken up, and it’s pounding a mile a minute under his grey tee shirt, even as he hears his father rush back downstairs, shotgun in hand.  

 

He shoves into Mattie’s room without really using the doorknob.His brother shocks awake at the loud noise, sitting up with his too-long hair sticking out in every direction.  

 

“Danny?” he slurs.“What the hell, what – “

 

“Mattie,” says Danny, and something in his voice, or in the half-wild expression he knows he must be wearing, makes Mattie close his mouth.“Take Abby, get up to the attic.Something’s happening.”

 

Danny herds Mattie out into the dark hallway, his eyes fear-blown and trying to focus on everything at once.At the other end of the hall, Abby starts to inch tentatively out of her room, tiny in her Hello Kitty pajamas.

 

Danny takes off running for the far side of the house, where Katie’s room is located – in the other direction from the attic.Behind him, he hears Mattie pull the stairs to the attic down, rushing Abby up them even as she starts to sniffle.

 

Downstairs, there’s a commotion, a loud crashing.Men’s voices shout harshly through the floor, and Danny can barely make out his father’s in the mêlée, fighting to be heard against deeper baritones.  

 

Not wanting to scare his sister, Danny tries to open the pink-painted door to her room as quietly as possible.She wakes up anyways – or maybe she was already awake, woken by his passage down the hallway.

 

Katie’s sitting up in bed, clutching her triceratops, her eyes watery.“Danno,” she says, her lip quivering, and Danny wants to hug her and tell her everything’s okay, because she’s his baby sister, six years old and sweeter than anything.

 

“Come on, monkey,” he lifts her out of bed.She burrows her face into his shoulder, and he feels his shirt dampen.

 

He manages to cut his foot open on a Barbie doll, but then he’s jogging back down the hall and Katie’s clinging to him, and the volume of voices from downstairs is rising dangerously.Danny thinks he hears his mother, her cadence of voice different from the others but still distressed.

 

“Danno,” Katie whines against him.

 

“Shh, monkey, you’ve got to be quiet, okay?”

 

He hurries up the left-open steps to the attic.In the small, dark space he spots Abby and Mattie’s pale white faces, and hurries over to hand Katie off to his brother.Mattie’s shivering in the cool air, his shorts barely sufficient insulation.

 

Danny strains to pull the stairs back up, closing them in.He leaves the rope usually used to access the attic from downstairs stuck in between the floor and the door, disallowing entry from below.

 

For a moment it’s deathly quiet, Katie and Abby’s quiet crying the only sound in the room.Danny doesn’t know if the yelling has stopped, or if the attic door has served to cut them off from the noise.

 

Two floors down, a gunshot.Danny flinches violently, and a woman screams, loud enough to hurt his ears.

 

Katie starts crying more loudly, her face buried in her triceratops, sandwiched in between Mattie and Abby, curled in the corner.

 

There’s movement below them, Danny thinks – someone in the upstairs hallway, maybe.He looks back to his siblings, signaling them with a finger to his lips. Slowly, Mattie presses a hand gently over Katie’s mouth, muffling her sobbing.  

 

Danny looks around him for something to use to defend them, if it comes to that, but doesn’t dare move from his spot right above the folded stairs, for fear that the floor will creak under his feet.

 

He starts to stretch out, eyes on a heavy brass clock, broken and discarded up here with their other unused heirlooms.

 

Before he can reach it, there’s another gunshot, this time from right under them.  

 

The boom of it makes Danny’s eardrums pop.He lurches forward the last couple of inches and closes his hand around the clock, even as he has the sinking thought that the intruders, whoever they are, could start shooting through the floor, if they knew they were up here – 

 

“Danny,” his dad’s voice calls.“It’s safe, now, Danny, you can come down.”

 

Danny looks over at Mattie, Katie, and Abby, at their frightened faces and shaking hands.Even Mattie’s face is tear-streaked, shining in the limited light.

 

“Mattie,” he says quietly, so that they can hear him but their father can’t.“Wait up here until the police get here, okay?”

 

Abby hugs around Katie, squishing them both into Mattie’s side.“Dad won’t call the police,” Mattie says, mirroring Danny’s lowered voice.  

 

“No,” Danny agrees.“Probably not.But the neighbors will have heard.”

 

* * *

 

The interior of the US Marshals’ office in Newark is painted beige, which Danny knows was a valiant attempt on the part of the administration to make it feel more homey.He almost wishes they’d stuck to grey though, wishes they’d just given up and admitted to being a government building like any other, slave to the day-in and day-out of the bureaucracy.

 

“I can’t believe this,” says Mattie, scowling.  

 

Danny gives him his best glare across the ovular conference table.This is just what he needs right now – Mattie’s teenage moodiness rearing its ugly head where it’s not wanted, while Katie and Abby sit, obviously upset even though the Marshal across from them is trying to explain everything gently.

 

Marshal Kalakaua looks unsure of what to say to placate Mattie.She tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear, and Danny gets the impression that she doesn’t deal with kids very often.

 

“Mattie,” Danny tries, like a warning.He wants to say something to contradict him, something reassuring, like – we’ll be fine, don’t whine about it, it’ll be nice for a change of pace.Every option that runs through his head sounds hollow, insincere, and if he can’t believe any of it himself how can he convince Mattie to?

 

“You’ll – ah – be staying in a federal safe house just outside the city limits,” Kalakaua continues, as if trying to get the attention of the meeting back on track.“It’s a nice place.You’ll each have your own room, and there’s a pool out back.”

 

Abby gasps, a quiet, ill-contained sound.Danny pulls an excited face down at her, and she giggles – she’s always liked to swim, a fixation that Danny never really understood, himself.

 

“You’ll go to school at the local public school,” Kalakaua says, “ten minutes away in Albuquerque.You’ll all have to try to keep a low profile, so no running for the student government, and we’ll have to be careful about school sports.”

 

Danny’s heart falls a little, but he doesn’t let it show on his face.He plays baseball – has played baseball since he was barely four feet tall and fostered an intense loyalty to his little league team – and he would’ve liked to continue, if only because it provides a sort of escape for him.And that would’ve been valuable – and escape from this messed-up life he’s living now.

 

“When will mommy come?” 

 

Danny looks down at Katie, her chair pushed so close to his that the tail of her triceratops is brushing his arm.She hasn’t let go of the damned thing since that night two weeks ago, when everything really started going to shit.

 

“She’ll be joining you in six months,” Kalakaua answers, “just as soon as she’s done testifying.We’ll try and schedule weekly video chats as well, if we can.”

 

Danny tries to look grateful, if only for utter lack of his siblings’ expressed gratitude.It’s true that they’re tearing up their lives to go into witness protection, and it’s true that these people are just doing their job, helping them, but they’re being cautious about it, making sure there aren’t too many jarring surprises.

 

Still, the whole thing is a little much to manage, even for Danny.

 

“Your flight leaves tomorrow at ten,” says Marshal Kalakaua.“Your protective detail will take you to the airport, where myself and my partner, Marshal Kelly, will meet you.We’ll be serving as your legal guardians for the next six months, until your mother gets situated in Albuquerque, so we’ll be seeing quite a lot of each-other, I imagine.”

 

She seems nice, Danny thinks.Six months – it’ll seem like nothing.

 

* * *

 

Danny’s month ends like this – 

 

It turns out to be a nice house, the one they’re staying in, but it’s pueblo style and it’s like full-on desert life, wham-bam-in-your-face, and none of them have been given any time to acclimatize.  

 

They’ve been wheels-down in Albuquerque for going on five hours, and despite the time difference, Mattie and the girls have already turned in for the night, exhausted by the trip out.Danny sits up in the kitchen, his brain still scrambling to keep up, because it’s all happening too fast.

 

He’s past tired, more exhausted than he can ever remember being before in his seventeen short years of life, except maybe during finals freshman year, when he put off studying and had to pull all-nighters for a solid week.The freshly-made bed in the smallest room upstairs – which he’d drawn by default – is calling to him, but he’s got this feeling in his gut like the second he goes to sleep, something bad will happen – the mobsters gunning for his father will show up, Mattie will decide that it’s a good idea to sneak out in a strange city, Katie will wake up after a bad dream and forget where she is.

 

Logically, he knows that Marshal Kelly is keeping watch a few feet away, seated vigilantly in the next room just in case someone managed to follow them all the way here from New Jersey.He’s been on edge for the past few weeks, though, and he hasn’t known either of the marshals long enough to feel comfortable trusting them with the safety of his family.

 

Danny takes a long drink from his glass of water and wishes he’d brought some shorts to sleep in – it’s hot here, hotter than he expected coming from twenty-degree November weather on the east coast.

 

There’s a noise from the hall.Danny looks up just as Marshal Kalakaua appears in the doorway, looking terribly out of her element in a pair of USMS sweatpants and a white undershirt, her hair pulled back from her face.  

 

“You should get some sleep,” she tells him.“You’re going to need your rest this week.”

 

Danny nods, takes another gulp of water.“I will in a minute,” he says, and his lips twitch but he doesn’t really have it in him to smile.

 

Kalakaua crosses her arms over her chest, perhaps feeling just as out of place as she appears, and fixes him with a knowing look.“You’re safe here, Daniel,” she says.“We’re federal Marshals – anything happens, we’ll deal with it.”

 

Danny looks at her wearily.“With all due respect, Marshal Kalakaua,” he says, “I hope you’ll forgive me when I say that I don’t trust you quite yet.”

 

Kalakaua smiles.“I don’t blame you,” she replies softly.“You’ve been through a lot of shit lately.I wouldn’t trust me either.”

 

Danny isn’t really sure what to say to that, so he settles for finishing off his water, setting the empty glass beside the sink with the left-over dishes from dinner.

 

“But you’re going to have to sleep eventually,” Kalakaua continues.“And we haven’t given you any reason not to trust us yet, have we?”

 

She understands how he thinks, apparently.Danny looks at her once more, like if she were bluffing she’d have a tell.  

 

“Okay,” he concedes.He’ll probably lie awake and stare at the ceiling until morning, but that kind of counts as rest as well, in his book.“I’ll see you in the morning, Marshal Kalakaua.”

 

He starts to move past her out of the kitchen, but she stops him with a hand on his shoulder.“Call me Aunt Jill, Daniel,” she says.“Even at the house, so you get used to it.”

 

“Alright,” Danny says.“Goodnight, then, Aunt Jill.”

 

* * * 

 

When Danny wakes up at four the next morning, the rest of the house is still asleep.Even Marshal Kelly has turned in for the night, apparently satisfied that the coast was clear, that none of them were in imminent danger.  

 

Danny pours himself a cup of orange juice and takes note of the fully-stocked fridge, the shelves probably stacked by government Marshals of some sort.

 

His stomach is growling, body not yet used to the four hour time shift, and he’s just sitting down with a breakfast burrito when he hears a strange noise at the front door, like something’s scratching at the other side.

 

Danny sets down his burrito slowly and rises from the kitchen table.He’s still groggy, but he feels suddenly alert, like the threat of an intruder is helping him focus through the haze of it all, the haze of the two hours of sleep he caught last night and the countless others spend squinting out his bedroom window at the street, the desert landscape so very alien to him.  

 

He creeps towards the door, something in the back of his mind screaming that he should wake Kalakaua and Kelly.Instead he just picks up what looks like a very heavy vase from the mantle piece and stalks up to the window, drawing the curtain back to peer outside.

 

There’s a lanky figure crouched on the front doorstep, working at the lock with what looks like a bobby pin.He’s a teenager – he can’t be any older than Danny himself, with his face hidden by a shaggy head of curls, wearing what appears to be a pair of swim trunks.He doesn’t look dangerous at all.

 

Danny steps over, unlocks the door, and yanks it open in one swift movement.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demands.

 

The guy looks up.“Oh,” he says, “sorry.”

 

Danny tilts his head and fixes the guy with a look.“Sorry? You’re trying to break into my house, buddy – sorry isn’t going to cut it.”

 

The guy straightens – and whoa, okay, he’s definitely a lot taller than Danny.He’s pretty tanned, too – his entire front’s exposed by the complete lack of a shirt, not that he really has any need for one, with those abs.

 

“I didn’t think anyone lived here,” he says, defensively.“I’ve been coming here for a while, to use the pool – ”

 

“You’re breaking into my house to use the pool?” Danny asks incredulously.“Really? What, there are no public pools in this city?”

 

“None that are open at four in the morning,” the guy shoots back, his eyebrows drawn in a sharp v, like he’s offended.“Look, you don’t have to hit me with a vase, I’ll go – again, I’m sorry – ”

 

“Hold up, buddy,” says Danny, brandishing the vase.“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t call the cops on you, huh? That was breaking and entering, what you were just doing with that little hairpin.”

 

The guy smiles lopsidedly.“I’m a minor,” he supplies.“I’d be out in time for school today.It’s not worth the trouble.”

 

Danny lets the hand holding the vase fall to his side, the glass-blown object bouncing against his leg.“You must be some kind of crazy person, huh?” he asks, the fight not yet gone from his voice.

 

“Well,” the guy says, slightly flustered, “I just wanted to go for a swim, and I haven’t got a pool at my place, so – I mean, I live pretty close to here, and there’s never been anybody here when I’ve come before, there’re no cars out front – “

 

“Yeah, because they’re in the garage, doofus,” Danny snaps.“You haven’t got much of a brain on you, do you?”

 

“Hey,” the guy says, “that’s a little uncalled for – ”

 

“Daniel?” says a voice from beside him.“Who’s this?”

 

Danny turns, and there’s Marshal Kelly, still in his slacks and button-down from yesterday, rumpled enough that Danny knows he actually went to bed, at least for a couple of hours.  

 

“Uh, Uncle Dave,” he says.“This is just our friendly neighborhood juvenile delinquent, whose name I have yet to learn – “

 

The guy steps forward, offering his hand to Kelly.“Steve McGarrett, sir,” he says.He doesn’t offer any explanation, like it’s perfectly normal for random strangers to show up on people’s doorsteps half-naked when the sun has still not risen over the horizon, when the entire neighborhood is silent, inactive.

 

Kelly shakes his hand tentatively.“David Williams,” he says, supplying the alias last name that their entire hodgepodge group will be using.“Can I ask what business you have with Danny here?”

 

“Business?” Danny says.“No business, no – he was just trying to pick the lock on the front door is all, to use our pool, of all things – “

 

“I apologized already, sir,” says Steve, directly to Kelly.“I was under the impression that this house was vacant, is all.”

 

Marshal Kelly looks Steve up and down warily, his muscles tense, but seems to come to the same conclusion Danny did – adolescent dingbat in a pair of swim trunks equals slim chance of an actual threat.  

 

“I’m sure we can forget the incident, Mister McGarrett,” says Kelly, but something in his smile says you’re going on my watch list.“From now on, if you want to use our pool, just knock – and only during sane hours, okay?”

 

Steve nods, and he might be a bit sheepish, but Danny can’t tell because he’s busy being appalled by how terrible his hair is, all ratty and uncombed, down around his ears.  

 

“I appreciate it, Mister Williams,” says Steve.“I won’t bother you again.And, uh, welcome to the neighborhood.”

 

He smiles again, that goofy lopsided grin that seems a smidge too big for his face, and starts off down the road, barefoot in his dry swim trunks.  

 

* * *

 

“I know you’re nervous, but you’re gonna be fine, monkey.”

 

Katie’s arms are in a vice-like grip around his neck, anchoring him to the sidewalk outside Albuquerque Public School.He’s not optimistic for either of them making the first bell, judging by the two hours it took to get her to release the death-grip on her triceratops this morning.

 

“Can you come with me, Danno?” she asks.

 

He rubs a hand over her back soothingly, and wants to say yes, because she’s in kindergarten and how hard must this be – being relocated after not even a full year in school?  

 

“I can’t, monkey, I’ve gotta go to my class,” he answers.“But you’re gonna have so much fun, okay? And I’ll be here to pick you up at the end of the day.”

 

He detaches her slowly from his neck and holds her out at arm’s length, smiling encouragingly even as he spots tears staining her cheeks.“It’s all gonna be fine, Katie, you’ll see.You’ll see Abby at lunch, okay? And if you need anything, if you get scared, you can always call Aunt Jill, she’ll come right over.”

 

Katie nods slowly, her fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the straps of her purple backpack.Danny ruffles her hair, and she wrinkles her nose.  

 

“I’ll be fine, Danno,” she says, like she’s the one who’s been trying to reassure her this whole time.

 

Danny’s grin widens, genuine.“I’ll see you at the end of the day, monkey.”

 

He gives her head one last pat, and she skips off the sidewalk towards the school doors, where the school administrator is waiting just inside the doorway, already talking to Abby.  

 

Danny straightens out of his crouch, squares his shoulders, and walks of towards the high school, Mattie – who’s been standing behind him this whole time – falling into step next to him.

 

“We’re gonna be late,” Mattie says, his hands stuffed in his pockets.His backpack’s too small to fit all his books, but Danny didn’t really feel like arguing with him this morning, not when there were a million other things to do.

 

“I know,” Danny says.“I’m sure they won’t mind.”

 

They don’t mind – the high school administrator takes Mattie off one way after pointing Danny in the direction of his first class, armed only with a schedule and a room number.  

 

He finds the room – room number sixty-three, apparently home to his advanced American history class – and opens the door cautiously, poking his head inside.  

 

The perky young teacher at the front of the class turns at the sound of the door opening, trailing off mid-sentence with her finger pointed at the whiteboard.She smiles at Danny as he slips inside, moving her hands to smooth her cardigan over her stomach.

 

“You must be Danny Williams,” she says.“Come on in, have a seat.We were just discussing the Articles of Confederation.”

 

Danny shuffles towards the back of the class, where the empty seats always seem to be, receiving a couple muttered greetings from several of his more inspired classmates – and who’s there in the back corner but his friendly neighborhood juvenile delinquent himself.

 

Steve McGarrett.  

 

“Danny,” says Steve, smiling when he sees him.The teacher starts prattling on again about the weaknesses of the Articles, and Danny slips into the sole empty desk in the entire back row, which just so happens to be next to this maniac – and isn’t that just Danny’s luck.“Good to see you again, brah.”

 

* * *

 

It becomes apparent by lunchtime that the rest of the school does not share Danny’s well-founded opinion that Steve is a dingbat.  

 

That is, except for Steve’s friend Catherine Rollins, who seems to be able to call Steve on his shit pretty well, and has no qualms about doing it.

 

“I told you three months ago when you started breaking into that place that people lived there, Steve,” she says across the lunch table.“If the house was for sale there would’ve been signs, real estate Marshals going in and out, the works.”

 

“The housing market isn’t exactly booming, Cath, if you haven’t noticed,” Steve retorts.“Just because there was no activity doesn’t mean the place wasn’t up for grabs, here.”

 

Danny’s somehow managed to end up sitting between Steve and a little bespectacled guy called Max Bergman – don’t ask him how, but Steve has sort of become his impromptu guide to the high school, at least for the day.He’s already put down his pulled pork and beans, but is taking his time on his fruit cup, because it is his house they’re arguing about, kind of, and he doesn’t want to be asked to explain its status.  

 

“Danny,” says Catherine, despite Danny’s mouthful of fruit, “did your aunt and uncle buy the house recently, or have they had it for a while?”

 

Danny swallows.“They’ve had it for a while, I think,” he answers, carefully.“They’ve just been out of town, visiting family.”

 

Catherine turns to Steve, a smug smirk on her lips.“See, Steve?” she says.“You’re luck you haven’t been arrested, what with how you’ve been breaking in there five days a week.”

 

Steve sighs and leans back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head.Danny nearly gets a faceful of elbow, but he manages to lean out of the way, over into Max’s personal space – Max doesn’t say anything, which seems to be something of a trend with him.  

 

“What’s done is done, Cath,” says Steve.“Obviously I’ll stop now, since there are people living there – ”

 

“Come on, it’s not like you’re not just going to find another empty house with a pool,” Catherine interrupts, sharing an exasperated look with the girl sitting next to her, Lori Weston.“None of us want to bail you out of juvy again.”

 

Danny is, after eight hours of knowing Steve, unsurprised by this new tidbit of information, but he does have another question, actually.He leans over towards Steve – Steve sort of cants his head sideways, to listen – 

 

“How did you get past the alarm system?” Danny asks quietly.“You didn’t have the key code, I take it.”

 

Steve grins a little half-smile that pulls up one side of his mouth.“Cut the yellow wire,” he says, conspiratorially.“Don’t worry, though, I put it back together before I left, every time – if you cut it on an angle, you can twist the copper strands back together so they work the same.”

 

Danny nods, and stashes the information away to give to the marshals later.“You didn’t electrocute yourself? What with the pool water, and all.”

 

“I did the first time,” Steve admits, perhaps a little ashamedly.“But after that, I brought latex gloves.Figured better safe than sorry, right?”

 

Catherine’s giving them an odd look from across the table, one with squinty eyes and a side-tilted head, and Danny doesn’t really know what to make of it, so he’s glad for the distraction when Jenna speaks.

 

“So, Danny,” she says, “where are you from?”

 

Danny’s mind goes New Jersey automatically, and he scrambles for a moment before he manages to remember, “Virginia.Just outside Richmond.”

 

“Wow, east coast,” Jenna says.“What brings you all the way out here?”

 

“Me and my brother Mattie, and my little sisters are staying with our aunt and uncle for a while, while mom and dad work out some stuff.”  

 

A small portion of that is true, Danny supposes, but he still feels like he’s lying to these people, saying it, pulling some sort of long con – but it’s for the protection of his family, and that’s what this all is, isn’t it – witness protection.  

 

* * *

 

Danny falls into a sort of single-parent routine, and Marshals Kalakaua and Kelly, though he can tell that they want to help, step aside and let him.  

 

His day starts at five thirty every morning, at which point he drags himself out of bed to the screech of his alarm clock, takes a quick shower to wake up, and works his way down stairs.Then it’s time for Abby and Katie’s lunches – ham and cheese on Tuesday and Thursday, PB&J on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with a juice box – grape for Abby and apple for Katie.  

 

Then Abby and Mattie wake up, and he sets to work scrambling eggs and pouring cereal and telling Mattie that really, he’s old enough to make his own breakfast, Danny shouldn’t be doing this for him.But then he sets their plates down and they tuck in and he knows he’ll do it again tomorrow, because this is what their mom used to do for them, and Danny can’t break that routine.

 

Six thirty and it’s time to wake Katie, so he works his way upstairs and pads into her room, wakes her up slowly because she’s not very good at mornings – none of them are.He sets out her school clothes for her, makes sure she brushes her teeth, and comes back downstairs in time to help Abby with the three pages of math homework she forgot to do the night before.

 

Then it’s seven o’clock and they’re out the door, piling into Kalakaua’s minivan as the marshal herself staggers out the door with a cup of coffee, and really, Danny always thought federal law enforcement Marshals were supposed to be always-alert, ever-ready.  

 

They pile out at the bus stop ten minutes before the first bell, and Mattie heads off to the high school while Danny escorts his sisters across the street, carrying Katie with one arm while Abby has a grip on his other hand.Abby will run off to her friends and Danny will give Katie her daily before-school pep talk, ruffling her hair because that’s what gets her to feel like a big girl, like I can do this.

 

By the time that’s done he’s got two minutes, so he runs back across the street and through the halls just in time to slip into his American history class, out of breath and already tired, the whole day left ahead of him.  

 

“Cutting it a little close there, Danno, don’t you think?” 

 

Danny glares half-heartedly at Steve, and that’s something he’ll never understand – how, in the midst of all this craziness, Steve has managed to become a constant fixture in Danny’s life.  

 

“Look who’s talking, Steven,” Danny shoots back.

 

“I’m very punctual,” Steve argues.

 

“Your definition of punctual does not match normal people’s definition of punctual,” Danny says.“You know – punctual, on time, in places you’re supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be there.”

 

Steve smiles.“I’m always here for the important stuff, aren’t I?”

 

Then the bell rings, and roll is called, and Danny’s off to physics, English, lunch, math, Spanish, phys ed where he can keep up with Steve, usually, and then the bell rings again, and – 

 

Steve has gotten in the habit of walking with him to collect Katie and Abby, and most of the time he doesn’t really mind it, except when he’s had a bad day and has a feeling that Steve will only make it worse, in which case the shaggy-haired maniac notices pretty quickly and runs off to do something else.  

 

So Abby will run out the front doors and tell Steve all about her day, and Katie will come out slower behind her and hug Danny around the neck for a solid three minutes, because she’s still not used to this – to having just Danny, to losing him for eight hours a day.  

 

Danny will herd them all into the minivan, Steve will head off walking who-knows-where.Marshal Kelly will give Danny this look over the center console, and say something along the lines of, “You shouldn’t be getting so close to some guy that was trying to break into our house two weeks ago.”

 

“I’m not,” Danny will answer.“I just don’t know a whole lot of people, is all.”

 

They get home, and Mattie disappears into his room because he’s becoming more of a teenager with every passing day, brooding and sulking and too-cool-to-talk-to-you-once-you’ve-given-me-food.Danny sits at the kitchen table with Abby and Katie and somehow they work together to get both girls’ homework done while having a snack – usually apple slices and Cheez-Its.  

 

Then Danny retrieves Katie’s triceratops from her room and sets her up watching Nick Jr. while Abby tucks into the armchair she’s claimed as hers alone with one of the Magic Treehouse books.He tries to check on Mattie and only gets a stoic volume-rise of some heavy metal in response, then slides into his room to rush through his own homework in the half-hour before dinner.

 

Six o’clock and Kalakaua gets home with pizza or some other takeout, because Danny doesn’t usually have time to cook, and apparently that’s something the USMS doesn’t teach you.Danny comes down to eat with the rest of them, making sure Abby and Katie wash their hands even though he doesn’t bother with Mattie anymore, a ruin of half-finished homework left on his bed.

 

They’re done dinner by seven, and Danny takes Katie up to bed, leaving Abby with a half-hour warning because he knows she always adds an extra half-hour to any bedtime he gives her.By the time he convinces Katie that he’s not trying to give her mint toothpaste, helps her brush her teeth with the berry-blast flavor that she favors, and tucks her in, Abby’s onto a new Magic Treehouse book.

 

He tries Mattie’s door again, but he’s barricaded himself back in after emerging to be fed.So Danny’s given fifteen minutes to scramble through some Shakespeare, at which point Abby realizes that she’s supposed to be in bed, and so decides to stall with a snack.Only she’s forgotten where they keep the juice boxes – Danny knows she’s being stubborn, refusing to get used to their new house – so he runs down to get her one, then herds her up to bed.

 

Kalakaua or Kelly – both of whom have actual work to get done, having been transferred to the Albuquerque office for the duration of their stay – will come to check on him, and he’ll reassure them that everything’s going fine.They’ll disappear back into their rooms by eight thirty.

 

Danny will go collect some homework from upstairs and clear himself some space at the kitchen table, to lie in wait for when Mattie inevitably emerges to get himself a Hot Pocket.He’ll ask his brother how his day was and get a terse fine in response, which will serve as his cue to move upstairs.

 

The homework he’s willing to finish will be done by ten, when Danny will settle in for a restless night, catching something like four hours of sleep at most before he’s up the next morning, five thirty on the dot.

 

* * *

 

December finds Steve floating in Danny’s pool, impervious to the sun even as Danny’s buried under three layers of Banana Boat, worried as to whether or not dipping his feet over the edge into the water has rendered them vulnerable to sunburn.  

 

Marshal Kelly has moved on from his distrust of Steve, and though he’s still wary around him, careful in a way Danny has slowly been forgetting to be, he does allow Steve to use their pool, if only out of fear for the safety of the other houses on the block.

 

Danny watches him silently, swishing his feet in the water so that they make tiny waves against the side wall, a gentle lapping sound to fill the silence.Steve doesn’t seem to mind Danny’s vigil, a small smile on his mouth like he’s content simply to feel the water between his fingers.  

 

Danny feels this strange sense of camaraderie with Steve, like they’re both stuck in lives they don’t want to be living, horribly out of place in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Like Steve’s meant to be doing something bigger than this, making a difference, and maybe Danny wants to watch while he does – if he doesn’t get himself killed in the process.  

 

“Where are you from?” he asks, apparently breaking Steve’s resting state.

 

He lets himself fall under the water before starting to tread, his hair now wet and plastered to his face.“Honolulu,” he answers, and okay – Danny wasn’t expecting that.

 

“Hawaii?” he asks incredulously.  

 

“No, Kansas,” says Steve dryly.“Yes, Hawaii.”

 

“Well,” says Danny, slightly confused because that seems like a hell of a step down, “that explains why you like the water so much.What are you doing in the desert, though?”

 

Steve swims over to the side of the pool in one long stroke, propelling himself forward through the water with muscles that Danny doesn’t think he himself possesses.He props himself up with his forearms on the edge of the pool and kicks his legs out behind him.Danny gets the sense that he’s stalling, doesn’t want to answer the question.  

 

“My dad’s a cop,” Steve starts.“My mom – uh.She died.Car crash.”

 

Danny doesn’t say anything, and, for once, he doesn’t feel like he has to offer any sort of condolences – he’s always been terrible at it, anyways.

 

Steve doesn’t look like he expects Danny to say anything, either.“My dad had to deal with some things, I guess, so he sent me and my sister Mary to stay with family on the mainland – different family, though.Mary’s in Seattle, with my grandmother, while I’m stuck here with my mom’s brother.”

 

Danny nods.“That sucks,” he says, and Steve looks up at him sharply.“Being separated from your sister, I mean,” Danny elaborates.“I don’t know what we would’ve done if we’d been split up.”

 

“It’s fine,” Steve says, but his face is stony, closed off like Danny’s never seen it.He has only known Steve a short time, though, even if it feels like he’s spent years keeping the delinquent out of trouble.“We get by.”

 

Danny moves his feet in one more circle through the pool water before pushing himself to his feet.“I know,” he says.“Sometimes just getting by isn’t enough, though, Steve.”

 

* * *

 

The nightmares don’t start until Danny starts getting more than four hours of sleep a night, which really sucks because Danny was looking forward to being well-rested, for the first time in a while.  

 

It’s always after the attic.  

 

Danny’s coming down the stairs slowly, every muscle in his body spent and quivering, a cold sweat drying on his body even though he’s barely done any physical exercise tonight.  

 

He steps down onto the hall rug, and something squelches between his toes, warm and sticky.He looks down, and the floor is stained crimson under his feet.

 

There’s a body on the floor, one side of the head blown off, brain matter sprayed perpendicular to the torso.Nausea curls in Danny’s stomach, but he fights it down, biting the inside of his cheek.  

 

The stairs behind him start retracting into the ceiling, and Danny catches a glimpse of Mattie’s hand before the door to the attic is sealed off, the rope to pull the stairs down from this side pinned up and inaccessible.

 

“What’re they doing?”

 

Danny turns, and there’s his father, still holding the sawed-off shotgun, his face splattered with blood, shirt torn in one spot.“They’re safe,” his father says.“They can come down now, it’s safe.”

 

Danny stares at him openly.“There’s a dead fucking body on the floor, dad,” he says, furiously.“They’re just kids, they don’t need to see that.”He’s just a kid too, maybe – but it’s too late, here he is.He fights back another bout of nausea.

 

His father glares at him, a sort of empty anger, and Danny wishes he would put the gun down.“I think I’m the one who gets to decide that, Daniel,” he snarls.“I’m their father – ”

 

“Yeah, well, you’re a pretty shitty one,” Danny says viciously.“For Chrissakes, there are fucking mobsters in our house, dad, what the fuck are you into – ”

 

His father surges across the hall, backing Danny up against the wall.“I’m trying to be a good father!” he bellows.“I’m trying to provide for my family, Danno!”

 

Danny shoves him away.He staggers back, leaving footprints in the bloody rug.“Our house is a goddamn crime scene, dad!” he shouts.“You think this is good for the kids, huh? For Abby? For Katie? For Mattie?”

 

Danny’s mother comes rushing up the stairs, her cheeks tearstained.There are sirens in the distance, quiet but getting louder.  

 

“The police are on their way,” Danny’s mother says, her voice quiet.“We should get our stories straight now, while we have time.”

 

Danny looks incredulously between the two of them, like their faces will offer some sort of explanations for everything – his mother, her hands trembling, still in her dressing gown, blood on the toes of her slippers, and his father, an illegal weapon clutched in both hands like it’s a lifeline, his eyes blown, crazed.

 

“No,” Danny says, with a strength of voice that surprises him.“No stories.Tell the cops the truth.Now’s your chance to get out – testify about what you’ve been doing for the mob, dad – we can all get out.”

 

“Danny – ” his dad starts to say, but then there’s a loud knocking at the door.

 

 _Newark PD, open up!_ is the shout, and Danny’s rushing downstairs ahead of his mom because he’s got a family of idiots, apparently, who don’t like to comply with the legal authorities – 

 

It’s like walking into a bloodbath downstairs, guts splattering the walls and two bodies on the floor, faceless men who nevertheless don’t fail to haunt Danny – he doubles over and vomits into his mother’s potted plant, heaving until the police knock again, threatening to enter – 

 

Danny somehow manages to stagger over and open the door, with his father yelling down the stairs at him, “Don’t you dare open that door, Daniel – Danny!” – and he’s momentarily blinded by the roving lights – 

 

He blinks lethargically, gasping – 

 

– and sits up in bed, one side held down by the twisted, sweaty sheets.He’s off balance, but manages to catch himself on the headboard, his fingers jammed between the bed and the wall.  

 

Nightmare perhaps isn’t the best word to use.Memory might be better.

 

* * *

 

There’s a day right before Christmas break where Danny and Catherine are the first to the lunch table.It’s a rare occurrence for anyone to beat Steve there, what with his never-ending stomach, constant state of hunger, and sneaky way of bypassing the entire lunch line.  

 

It starts off with small talk – Catherine asks him if he saw the game, he says no, even though he does like the idea of the game being baseball, instead of football.He asks her what she’s doing over break, she says she’s visiting her grandparents in Wisconsin, not looking forward to the cold weather, et cetera.  

 

When it’s her turn to contribute to the furtherance of the conversation, Catherine drops the small talk completely.

 

“I’ve never seen Steve attach himself to anyone as quickly as he did to you,” she says, without so much as batting an eye.

 

“If trying to break into my house on my first day in the city counts as attachment, then yeah – ” 

 

Catherine swats at him, not really trying to hit him.“I’m serious, Danny.Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I mean.”Except, really – he has no idea what she means, does he?  

 

“He’s usually much more closed off,” Catherine continues.Danny snorts in disbelief.“Really,” Catherine says.“He talks to people, but he doesn’t really say anything, usually.At least, not what he means.

 

“You seem closed off, still, though,” Catherine isn’t so much looking at him as through him, Danny feels, and it’s cliché, sure, but that’s what it feels like.“Like, you talk a mile a minute, but you won’t let anyone find out too much about you.”

 

She’s spot on.Danny’s not comfortable having this conversation in a cafeteria – it’s a little too personal to be sharing with the group of bottle blonde cheerleaders sitting at the next table over.

 

Catherine doesn’t seem to share Danny’s reservations about their potential audience.“I just want you both to be careful, Danny.Steve’s a close friend of mine, and you’re starting to become one as well.I don’t want to see either of you get hurt.”

 

Danny doesn’t realize that he’s just gotten the break-his-heart-and-I-break-your-neck talk until a week later, two days before Christmas, when Steve shows up on his doorstep holding a pineapple with a bow on it, wearing a thousand-watt smile and a pair of swim trunks with holly leaves printed on them.

 

* * *

 

This, unsurprisingly, is not the first year Danny has had to play Santa.He does have some help this time, though – Kalakaua offers invaluable insight into the minds of little girls, having a couple of nieces herself, and Kelly, having once been a moody teenage boy himself, helps Danny choose things for Mattie that he’ll like but won’t find too offensive or overbearing.

 

“This stupid hat,” Danny says.“It’s a baseball cap, but the brim is flat.Dumbest looking thing I’ve seen in my life, but apparently the kids love them.”

 

“Danno, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” says Steve lowly, like he’s telling a secret, “but we are kids.”  

 

They’re holed up in Steve’s basement watching Magnum PI reruns, slumped across Steve’s uncle’s overstuffed La-Z-Boy beanbag, which is gigantic enough to fit both of them.Danny has found himself with an inordinate amount of free time during winter break, and with his siblings off doing their own things most of the time, both marshals in tow, he’s taken to spending it with Steve, and sometimes their other friends as well – Catherine or Jenna or Max or Gabrielle Asano, who Danny had somehow managed to avoid meeting for several weeks.

 

“You know what I mean,” says Danny, raising his voice to talk over Magnum PI even though he doesn’t need to.“Not us kids, those stupid punk kids with the floppy haircuts and those shoes with wheels in them.Those kids.”

 

“Those kids?” Steve teases.“You mean the majority-of-kids-in-America kids?”

 

Danny huffs.“It’s stupid to make a baseball cap flat, is all I’m saying.And some of the toys little girls are playing with today,” he makes an exasperated little sound, “those dolls are like dominatrix Barbie, I swear.If Abby grows up to be some sort of underwear model – ”

 

“They make a lot of money,” Steve interjects.

 

Danny shoots him a look.“What?”

 

“Underwear models,” Steve explains.“They make a lot of money.Especially Victoria’s Secret models, you know.There used to be a lot of photo shoots on the south shore, I knew some of the girls – ”

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Danny says, making a slow-down motion with his hands.“You knew Victoria’s Secret models?”  

 

Steve gives him a blank look.“Yeah,” he says, in a what’s-the-big-deal tone of voice, “a couple.”

 

Danny sits back to process that information, and Magnum pulls himself up out of the ocean, moving stealthily along the beach as if whoever’s watching won’t have just seen him emerge three seconds ago.

 

“This reminds me a lot of home,” Steve says without warning.  

 

Danny smiles a little.“You get shot at a lot at home?” he asks, and it’s a real question, because he wouldn’t put it past Steve.

 

Steve’s mouth curls up in a little grin, but he doesn’t answer, just changes the channel two-three-four past Star Wars – who goes past Star Wars, really – until he’s settled on something that’s apparently sufficient.Danny looks over, and what is it but Boardwalk Empire, and – 

 

“Not this,” he instructs.“This reminds _me_ of home.”

 

Steve squints at him sideways.“I thought you were from Virginia.”

 

Danny knows he should be panicking at the slip-up, but he isn’t – because, if Steve knew, would it really be that terrible? Still, he fumbles for a lame excuse, and comes up with, “Yeah.East coast, you know.”

 

Steve doesn’t quite looks like he believes him, but he doesn’t press.“Okay,” he says, and continues flipping, “I guess we’ll just have to find something set in the Midwest, then.”  

 

“Or Europe,” Danny supplies.“Or Asia – the world is a big place, Steven.Plus, you know, science fiction…”

 

* * *

 

Every fiber of Danny's being protests his five thirty a.m. wake up routine during the week school starts back up again.In only two weeks he's gotten accustomed to rolling out of bed a few minutes after eight, still somehow the first one awake in the house, even though Kelly and Kalakaua supposedly still have work.

 

By Wednesday afternoon, Danny's beat, having slept something like five hours total over the last couple of nights, kept up by homework and the occasional nightmare - which have become increasingly worrying, especially after he'd woken up one nightto find Kalakaua watching him warily from the door.  

 

The back of his neck is sunburnt, because he can't quite wrap his head around having to wear sunscreen in January, and he has a pounding headache, not helped at all by the fact that he's wearing non-UV-protectant sunglasses, since Steve stole his good pair off his dresser.

 

He's working on loading everyone into Kelly' minivan, and Steve is mysteriously absent - Danny hasn't seen him since phys ed fifteen minutes ago, and he's not saying he's worried, but anyone who knows Steve knows that there's a lot that Steve can get up to in fifteen minutes when he's left unsupervised.  

 

Danny's strapping Katie into her booster seat, trying to work around a bag of goldfish, all of which seem to have the single-minded goal of swimming into Katie's mouth, with no heed to where or where not Danny's face might be.  

 

Abby and Mattie are arguing over the headrest of Abby's seat, something about whether or not Abby is entitled to time playing on Mattie's X-Box, which he'd been sent by their mother for Christmas.Danny is too tired to do anything more than shush them halfheartedly, even once he has successfully pinned Katie down long enough to fasten her seat belt.

 

He extracts himself from the back seat, stumbling out onto the school drive, and some idiot blasts past him in a silver Camaro.Danny swears to God the dumbass gets close enough that his knuckles skim his paintjob - shame it wasn't his nails so he could scratch it to hell.  

 

The mistreated Camaro screeches up to the curb in front of Kelly' minivan; Danny's just about to head up there and give that idiot a piece of his mind when the driver's side door swings open, and who else but Steve clambers out, too-long curly hair all around his stupid head.  

 

He smiles a thousand-watt smile at Danny, proud of himself for some reason.Danny can't have that, not when his fingers are still tingling from their brush with death."Are you crazy?" he says."You nearly ran me over, Steve, Jesus Christ - "

 

Steve's waving his hands, like that could ever appease Danny."You were like a foot away, Danno, you were fine, I would never run you over - "

 

"I was not fine, Steve, I came within an inch of my life just now - which, why do you even have a Camaro, anyways.You don't own a Camaro.Did you steal a car, Steven? Did you steal a _very_ _expensive_ car?"

 

Kelly is watching them with a faint look of bemusement from the driver's seat of the minivan.He rolls down the window, the door to the back seat already closed."You coming with us, Danny?" he asks."The argument in the back seat is about to go nuclear."  

 

"Yeah, just a minute," Danny says, at the same time that Steve takes it upon himself to butt in, "Nah, Mister Williams, I'll give him a ride back to the house."

 

Kelly looks back and forth from Danny to Steve, then back again.He shrugs to Danny."Take a night off, kid," he says.Danny has a moment to appreciate how very chill Marshal Kelly is, and how lucky they were to land a non-control-freak US Marshal as their stand-in uncle."It'll do you some good."

 

"But - "

 

"Everything will be fine without you," Kelly interrupts before Danny can protest."I think your aunt and I can handle the kids for one night."

 

Danny looks in the back seat - at Katie, preoccupied with her goldfish, swinging her feet happily from her booster seat, and Abby and Mattie, swatting playfully at each other over the seat.  

 

He looks over at Steve, who's grinning tentatively at him, like he's expecting Danny to snap at him - but instead, Danny can feel his high-strung strings snapping in his chest, aided by the gleam of the Camaro in the afternoon sunlight and the gentle sway of the palm trees along the school's sidewalk.  

 

"Okay," he says."A day off.How hard can it be, right?"

 

Steve's smile goes full brightness, and he steers Danny towards the car, which he still probably stole, by the way, because there's no way he can afford a car, calling over his shoulder, "I'll have him back by midnight, Mister Williams!"

 

Danny feels like there's something there he should argue with, but he's not quite sure what.

 

* * *

 

"Isn't there somewhere inside city limits that we can do this? You know, so when we inevitably fall and break all four of our legs, someone will actually be able to come rescue us."

 

He's struggling to keep up with Steve on the thin path, uphill in borrowed hiking boots - which, who even knows why Steve had hiking boots in Danny's size, because Steve's feet are abnormally large.The sun is in the process of setting, nearing the horizon, because the drive out here was something like two hours - Danny isn't exactly sure of the time, because he slept through a large portion of it, once Steve started talking about his favorite wrecks to dive back in Hawaii, overtaken by exhaustion and boredom.  

 

"The views are better out here," Steve answers, barely out of breath."You can't see the stars from within the city limits.Besides, you're not going to fall.If you do, I'll catch you."

 

"Yeah? You'll catch me? And who will catch you?"They're a good way up the cliff face, surrounded by trails cut into the rock by runoff, the desert stretching unimpeded for miles around them.It really figures that Steve's favorite passtime has become hiking, not something safe and reasonable like knitting, or scrapbooking.  

 

"I'll catch myself," Steve says flippantly."Come on, quit whining, we're almost there."

 

They are, indeed, almost there.Forty more yards up the mountain - "It's a _hill_ , Danno," Steve had insisted - and the ground levels out in a sort of plateau, so Danny can regain some leverage and catch up with Steve.  

 

"Just so you know," Danny huffs, standing further back from the edge than Steve, "working up a sweat in the middle of nowhere is not my idea of a day off."

 

"Really?" says Steve, whip-quick."I'd have figured it would depend on _how_ you were working up a sweat."

 

Danny's too shell-shocked by that to offer any response other than a sudden laugh.The sun has finally sunken under the horizon, leaving only a pale purple glow of light in the sky, and Steve looks out over the desert landscape, while Danny can't seem to look anywhere but Steve's face, relaxed and happy in the twilight.

 

Danny breathes deeply through his nose, the cool high-altitude air cooling the sweat on his face.He tears his gaze away from Steve's face, and moves to sit down, tiny pebbles crunching under his weight.After a moment, Steve joins him, moving slightly back from the precipice.  

 

It's near-silent all the way up here; they left the noises of the city behind miles ago.

 

"My mom used to love hiking," Steve says, without preamble."It was one of her favorite things about the island.She'd take me and Mary with her on the weekends, and we'd go somewhere new almost every time."

 

There's something deep in the back of Danny's brain that wants to tell Steve everything, that thinks everything would just be fine if he'd get this invasive, impossible weight off his chest.But Steve looks so light, like maybe he's finally gotten rid of his own cares, and Danny has a family to think about, so the best he can come up with is, "We don't have anything like this, back home."

 

Steve smiles briefly."You should come out to Honolulu sometime," he says, casually, like 2,467 miles is nothing at all."You'd love it.Sunshine, waves - "

 

"Yes," says Danny sarcastically, "really, Steven, you know how the sunshine loves me, it loves me to death, honestly, and I'm not a big swimmer, either, now that you mention it."

 

Steve's watching him with a look like he could listen to Danny ramble forever.Danny's struck with an urge to kiss his stupid face, and - wow, that's a new feeling, squished up in a contradiction and forced into a Steve-shaped body, in an old Tommy Bahama tee shirt and Danny's Maui Jims.  

 

"I'll teach you to dive," Steve goes on, like Danny hasn't spoken."My dad has a boat - he doesn't let me use it, but I borrow it all the time anyways - "

 

Danny raises his eyebrows."Yeah, borrow, right," he says."Just like you borrowed that Camaro, huh?"

 

"I _did_ borrow that Camaro," Steve protests, "I borrowed it from my uncle, he gave me the keys."

 

"Leaving something where you can take it does not equal _giving_ it to you, Steve, how many times do I have to go over this with you."Danny reaches over the small distance between them and snatches the sunglasses from Steve's collar."Thanks for these, by the way, I missed them during school today."

 

Steve has the good will to look sheepish, but it's not like he's jumping at the opportunity to apologize."Let's not pretend you didn't steal my hat last month, Danno."

 

"What hat? I remember no hat - "

 

"Sure you do.The Navy SEALs hat."

 

"Well, yeah, okay, but I asked politely, like a civilized person."

 

"And I have yet to see it back," Steve says, all dramatic, like _woe-is-Steve-McGarrett._ "That hat was my one true love in life, Danny - "

 

Danny feels like he's bursting out of his skin, and that's dumb, isn't it, that he chooses now of all times and places to have an existential crisis, on top of a mountain with this idiot, who'd just as soon swan dive off a bridge as into Danny's life, finding the spaces where Danny thought there weren't any.

 

"Fuck it," he says.He barely has time to register Steve's confused expression, because he's grabbing him by the side of his head, smashing his mouth against Steve's - Steve freezes, and something in the dormant depths of Danny's mind flutters worriedly, but he's never had time for gay panic, even though he's got time for just about every other kind of panic.

 

But then Steve makes a soft surprised sound in the back of his throat, and that seems to be that, because his hands come up in the back of Danny's wind-messed hair, and he heaves him closer, squeezing into those nonexistent spaces.He kisses like he's got a point to prove, which - maybe he does, Danny doesn't know his life, not really, but it doesn't matter.  

 

They separate for a fraction of a second, and Steve mumbles something - if Danny were listening, he'd hear, " _Until this"_ \- and then they're back full-force, hands and teeth and sweat-stained tee shirts, one of Danny's knees between Steve's legs, Steve's arms wrapped around Danny as far as they'll go.Danny's heart swoops, and flies, and there's nothing else but Steve's face pressed against his, Steve's breath in the wide-open nothingness, Steve's abdomen clenching under Danny's fingers.  

 

Steve gasps, his mouth wide-open and soft under Danny's - 

 

Danny's cell phone rings in his back pocket, loud and startling in the hush.He sits back abruptly, half on Steve's foot, half on his own, his head spinning; Steve watches him with a shell-shocked expression on his face, lips bruised bright red, cargo shorts straining, and Danny would love to attend to that, honest he would.

 

He fumbles his phone out of his back pocket with clumsy fingers.It's an unknown number, but he slides his finger across the screen anyways and answers.  

 

"Hello?"

 

" _Danny?"_ it's Mattie, his voice shaky and tentative.  

 

"Mattie?" Danny snaps, brain still struggling to refocus."What the hell? Where are you calling from?"

 

 _"I'm in real trouble,"_ Mattie says. _"Can you come pick me up? Like, now?"_

 

Danny wants to pummel him - he wants to strangle him, and yell at him, and ask him why he's so goddamn _naïve_ still, after all they've been through - but he wants to do it in the safety of their own home."Where are you?"

 

* * *

 

They run back through the park full-tilt, hiking boots pounding on the loose stone ground, shorts still uncomfortably tight.Danny hasn't gone this fast since baseball, but apparently all the fun has gone out of sprinting like he's running away from something.His lungs burn, but he keeps up with Steve, mostly, keeping track of the dingbat by the reflective bits on the back of his shoes, the awkward but somehow coordinated flailing of his gangly limbs.  

 

Steve unlocks the Camaro from fifty meters away, and they get in too quickly for Danny to protest the fact that Steve's driving before they're pulling out of the park parking lot.There's no one else on the road, so Steve blasts the speedometer up until it's pushing eighty; Danny prays to God there are no park rangers out.

 

Danny's wound tight enough that he'd snap like a karate-chopped board if Steve so much as attempted conversation, and Steve seems to pick up on that pretty well, because he's quiet the whole ride back inside city limits.Danny's blood is still pumping a mile a minute, and he thinks that Steve's probably is too, rigid in his seat with hands shaking slightly against the steering wheel, adrenaline-fueled.

 

"He's fine, Danno," Steve says, daring to break the tense silence only once.

 

Danny just glances at him briefly before going back to watching the Arizona landscape roll by outside.

 

The Camaro rolls to a stop outside a seedy-looking Walgreen's stuffed in under a three-storey rise of brick apartments.The street isn't deserted - there are a few juvenile delinquent asshats lurking a ways down the sidewalk, eyeing the shiny silver paint job on Steve's car.

 

Mattie's hunched over against the closed door of the Walgreens, in the small circle of light cast by the store's dimmed external lights, well within view of the shop's security camera.He's nursing a shiner with a sweating bottle of water, blood still seeping from a cut in his eyebrow.

 

He rushes into the backseat the second he sees the car.His shoulders are hunched, like he's trying to make himself less of a target.Danny watches him in the rearview mirror as Steve pulls away.

 

"How fucking stupid are you, Mattie?" he says.  

 

Mattie's wearing the dumb flat-brimmed hat he got for Christmas, the Arizona Diamondbacks logo on it."It's no big deal, man, some guys just got pissed at us - "

 

"Yeah? For doing what?"

 

Mattie mumbles something.  

 

" _What_ , Mattie?"Steve looks surprised at the flat, serious tone of Danny's voice; he looks sideways at him for longer than is safe when driving, but Danny has more important things to deal with.

 

"I'm not ratting," Mattie says, louder."They're my friends."

 

Danny drags his hands over his face, and tugs on his hair.His headache is back and better than ever, tiny little mobsters slamming away at the inside of his head with tiny little sawed-off shotguns.  

 

* * *

 

Steve follows them inside the house, lagging from a safe distance.It's the first time Danny's seen him enter the house in any way other than blasting in like he's a tropical storm in hurricane season, needing to be everywhere at once - patting Abby on the head and fist-bumping Katie and slinging an arm around Danny's shoulders at the kitchen counter to drag him into whatever conspiracy he's planning with Max the whiz-kid.  

 

Mattie blasts ahead of Danny up the stairs to his room.Danny doesn't have enough energy to deal with the inevitable fallout were he to go up there and kick Mattie's door down, so he drifts into the kitchen, Steve closing the front door behind them.

 

Kalakaua and Kelly are spread out on the kitchen table.The kitchen looks like the goddamn situation room; Danny feels so very lucky that Abby and Katie are already asleep, oblivious to Mattie's fiasco, especially what with Danny being gone.

 

Kalakaua looks up as he enters, her hair frazzled around her head.She looks like that wacky teacher on one of those shows Katie watches, the one with the schoolbus."You found him?" she demands.

 

Danny sighs, nodding."He called me."

 

Kelly straightens from his perch hunched over the table."You should have called us immediately, Danny," he admonishes."This a major security threat - who knows who he was with - we have to deal with this accordingly - "

 

Danny's strung out.He's exhausted, he's homesick, he can't even wear his Mets jersey - the oversized jersey his dad got him for his ninth birthday, the one he had to leave back in Newark - he feels paranoia in his bones, like the Marshals are just waiting for him to slip up, so they can swoop in, like one misstep can have immeasurable cost.

 

"I can take care of my own fucking family," Danny snaps."We were doing just goddamn fine before all of this, and it's not like ma and pop were any help - "

 

"Yeah?" Kelly interrupts."You can take care of your family? What happens when guys show up who aren't afraid to use AKs and Molotov cocktails, Danny? Can you take care of them then?"

 

Danny feels sick.He can feel Steve's eyes on him like a tether - one that's going to dissolve and float away the second he turns around, he's sure - but he can't for the life of him come up with an answer.He's shaking; it feels like a year ago that they were up on that mountain, like maybe it was just a pipe dream, never happened at all.

 

He swallows.He thinks he feels Steve's hand touch his shoulder briefly, but it falls away.  

 

Kalakaua takes a small step forward around the table."Go get some sleep, Danny," she says.She's good cop tonight, then."We're going to stay up and do damage control - " Danny shoots her a look - "if there _is_ any damage to control."She purses her lips."No school in the morning.I don't want to risk it."

 

Steve's hand lands on Danny's shoulder and latches on.Danny'd like to say he doesn't at all sway back into Steve's touch, but he'd be lying through his teeth, wouldn't he? He nods slowly, like he's under water.

 

Steve follows him to the stairs, a soothing, looming presence at Danny's back.Anyone else, Danny would expect to be running for the hills by now, screaming _Jesus Christ_ and praying for deliverance, which - that's a little dramatic, but Danny's really fucking done.He thinks Steve probably has most of it figured out by now, but he's still not saying anything.

 

They pause outside Danny's door - it's the first at the top of the stairs, entirely by design.Steve squeezes Danny's shoulder once, nods like some sort of military signal that Danny's supposed to understand, and disappears inside.  

 

Danny goes to Katie and Abby's room, opening the door slightly to peek inside.They're both tucked in peacefully, Katie with a grip on her triceratops and Abby with a Magic Treehouse book open on her chest, a frog nightlight glowing in the corner.  

 

He tiptoes inside, goes over to press a kiss to Abby's forehead.She shifts slightly, but doesn't stir.He steps on a Barbie doll on his way over to Katie's side of the room, but he barely registers the shallow pain.He kisses Katie's forehead.

 

"Love you, monkey," he whispers.Katie's hold tightens on her triceratops.  

 

Danny's glad there's not a lock on the door to the bathroom he and Mattie share, even though Steve would probably be more than happy to hop out here with a paperclip and pick it from him.He opens it without knocking.

 

Mattie's working on his smushed face with a wet washcloth, dabbing at the bead of blood on his eyebrow.Danny's had worse after a baseball game, but this is his little brother, so it's different.

 

"Lemme help you," Danny says, even though he knows it's a lost cause.  

 

Mattie glares at him."No way.I can do it myself."  

 

Danny crosses his arms across his chest and leans back against the door frame."You're a stubborn bitch, you know that?" he's never so snippy with his siblings, but in this case it's warranted.  

 

"Fuck you, Danny - "

 

"Look, Mattie, I get it," Danny cuts him off, his voice low, so as not to wake the girls, "you've got a lot of teenage angst right now, you have an uncontrollable inclination to do stupid shit, for who-knows-why.Fine, whatever.The thing is, we've got a special situation here.You slip up, tell the wrong people the wrong things, and we could be dead."

 

He lets that sink in - and it looks like it's sinking deep, hopefully.Mattie looks unsure of himself, looks like he's reconsidering all that yipee-ki-yay false bravado he was brandishing a couple seconds ago.

 

"So," Danny continues, while he has his attention, "you're going to go downstairs, right now, and you're going to tell Kalakaua and Kelly everything.Everyone you've talked to, all the juvenile delinquency you've been up to, all of it."

 

"Are you coming?"

 

Danny considers for a moment."No," he says."You won't talk if I'm there, because for some reason you think I'm the bad guy.Plus, I'm beat - so I'm going to go to bed, and sleep for twenty-four hours."

 

It takes a minute for Mattie to nod in acquiescence, but he does.

 

Danny steps out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and goes back down the short upstairs hallway.

 

Steve has burrowed into Danny's double bed, both pillows curled under his head, because - of course - it figures that Steve would be a blanket hogger, that's just Danny's luck.He looks like he's already dozing, but the line of his back is still rigid, muscles tense around his spine, the veins in his forearms standing out against the skin in the dim light from the hallway.

 

Danny kicks off his borrowed hiking boots, thunking them against the wall next to the door.Steve watches him with his eyes half-open, and _Jesus_ his eyelashes, because Danny can see them from all the way over here, in the dark, no binoculars or anything.

 

Danny collapses into bed, in the less-than-half space that Steve has deigned to leave him.He nudges Steve's head off the pillows so he has room and then melts back against Steve's chest as Steve wraps his lanky arms around Danny's middle, grip tighter than is strictly comfortable.

 

He squashes his face against the back of Danny's head, his nose in Danny's hair, one of his thumbs stroking back and forth against Danny's hipbone.Both of them are still in their clothes from the day, probably getting that sandy orange dirt stuff all over Danny's sheets, but Danny couldn't care less right now.  

 

"Whatever it is," Steve murmurs, "we can handle it."

 

Danny laughs, "Not unless you really are a Navy SEAL, Steven," twisting in bed to face him.The blankets twist around his legs and waist, trapping Steve's hand against his skin, which is good - skin is good, as much skin as he can get until they've got no edges left.He's about to say something - something crazy, some lie that might somehow serve to snap Steve's rubberband perception of him back into place - but then Steve kisses him.

 

He's gentle, insistent, everything Danny could ever possibly need, more than he ever thought he might get a chance to have, and Danny can't do anything but hold on and pray from the bottom of his heart that Steve's not the first one to let go.

 

Steve moves on to suck kisses into Danny's neck, settling his weight over Danny on the bed, lips niggling at the underside of Danny's jaw, and _oh_ , this is what Danny would call stress relief, none of that hiking nonsense.He bites his lip to stifle a groan, but Steve's hands are working up Danny's shirt, and a small whimper of noise escapes.

 

He kicks the blankets down around Danny's feet so that he can settle his weight in between Danny's legs, and that's fine, that's great, who even needs blankets anyways when it's eighty degrees outside? Danny rolls his hips up, and Steve gasps like Danny punched him in the gut, sucking in hard against the hollow of Danny's collar bone.  

 

He holds Steve by the back of the neck and does it again, Steve's dick hard against his through both of their shorts, zippers rubbing slightly uncomfortably.Danny reaches down to undo Steve's fly, Steve still mouthing his neck, and he knows the second he gets his hands on Steve's bare skin that it's going to be over too quick, with the way Steve shudders against him, arms barely supporting him.

 

He kisses Danny hard, long eyelashes brushing against Danny's cheeks.Danny palms his dick, and Steve bites hard on Danny's lip.He can feel Steve's fingers struggling to undo his own fly, and he bucks up a little, painfully hard inside his underwear.  

 

Steve finally manages to work out how his fly works - genius, Danny tells you - and when he wraps his hand around Danny it's the best he's ever felt, probably, better than hitting a home run, better than sweeping the whole room at poker.  

 

They're frantic, like they're racing with nowhere to go, because they've both got points to prove.Everything narrows down to Steve - Steve's breath hot against Danny's lips, Steve's knees dipping the mattress inside Danny's thighs, Steve's nose sliding against his, Steve's dick heavy in his hand, Steve's weight pressing down on him, Steve's voice cracking as he says, "Fuck, Danny, I - "

 

Danny comes harder than he ever has in his life, vision white, hand stuttering on Steve before squeezing, and then Steve's gone, too, slumping over Danny, fingers digging into Danny's shoulders.  

 

* * *

 

They get up while the rest of the house is still asleep, because Danny doesn't want to have to answer questions about why Steve slept over last night.Steve zaps a Hot Pocket for breakfast, but Danny makes him take an orange and a cup of coffee too.Last minute, he slaps the Navy SEAL hat on Steve's head, sends him out the door with a kiss-cut-too-short.

 

Kelly comes stumbling out from his first-storey room not five minutes later, still in his pajamas, hopefully cooled down considerably from their argument last night, even though it's been barely ten hours.  

 

Danny sits at the kitchen counter and sips at his own cup of coffee while Kelly shuffles around the kitchen assembling his breakfast of some nasty herbal tea and yogurt with granola.He eats in silence, and when he's finished and deposited his bowl in the sink, he turns and fixes Danny with a look that says _serious conversation time._

 

"It looks like the people Mattie was with are okay," he says."Just some local kids, nothing too serious.He's going to stay away, just to be safe."

 

Danny snorts."Good luck with that, Uncle Dave."

 

"Meanwhile," Kelly continues, like he hasn't heard Danny's aside, "we've been getting too relaxed here.We need to cut back, get careful again.Minimize possibilities for collateral damage."

 

Danny feels something like a stone drop in his gut, like that cold feeling he had when he had to roll out of bed this morning, Steve's fingers still clinging sleepily to his shirt, curled around the dent Danny left in the mattress. 

 

"Right," he says, flatly."You're right.Whatever's safest."  

 

Abby and Katie are understandably ecstatic that they've been allowed to stay home from school, and they immediately demand from Danny the type of pancake breakfast that used to accompany a snow day back in New Jersey.Danny obliges them, whipped cream smilie faces included, because the way his heart is tearing a little with every beat is his fault mostly, and they shouldn't have to feel any effects.They should be able to go on smiling, counting down excitedly to when their mother will be joining them, now that she has a court date.  

 

Mattie deigns to descend from his room only long enough to retrieve a cup of coffee and a noogie from Danny, his head tilted under a baseball cap so that the younger kids won't see the black eye he's sporting.  

 

He pauses next to Danny on his way back upstairs, while Danny's flipping the second batch of pancakes, which Kalakaua and Kelly will devour the moment they're done with their morning work out routine."Tell, uh," Mattie says quietly, "tell Steve thanks for his help last night."

 

He runs off before Danny can do something irreparably embarrassing to him, like hug him - god forbid.Danny flips the last pancake on the griddle and reaches to turn off the stove, judging the pile of pancakes to be sufficiently high.

 

He turns back around with his own plate, to find Abby watching him inquisitively from the kitchen counter."Steve was here last night?" she asks.Christ, these kids have ears like hawks.

 

"Yeah," Danny answers easily."He gave me and Mattie a ride home from the city."

 

Abby stabs her fork into her pancake."Why'd he go? Is he coming back?"

 

Danny shoves a forkful of pancake into his mouth to stall, sans whipped cream, plus syrup and butter."I don't think so," he says, after thinking about how to explain it to an eight-year-old."He's probably gonna be hanging out with his other friends for a while."

 

"But _you're_ his best friend, Danno," Abby insists."Why would he - "

 

"He has other friends too, Ab," Danny gestures with his fork."He can't just be with me all the time."

 

Katie has a confused little look on her face, staring down at her pancakes in discontent.Her triceratops sits next to her on the counter, with his own fake plate and tiny sliver of pancake for breakfast."But Steve is _ohana_ , Danno," she says.

 

Abby speaks up with an air of _I-know-everything_ , " _Ohana_ means family, Danno."

 

"I know," says Danny.His pancake breakfast suddenly looks a whole lot less appetizing."Yeah, I know, monkey."

 

* * *

Danny tries to ignore Steve's texts, but in reality he reads every one, sometimes more than once.It's part of his brand-spanking awful new initiative to distance himself from Steve, since he's pretty far gone over him, and really he _can't_ let Steve get caught up in all of this, get hurt.  

 

It takes him all of ten minutes to pop over to Steve's house in Kelly' minivan, while Steve's at school, and drop off the borrowed hiking boots on the porch.Steve has left his out, and they're surrounded by a ring of sandy orange dirt.

 

They're back in school a day later, with extra US Marshals from the Albuquerque office patrolling campus discreetly, dressed as school security guards.Kids immediately seem to notice the increased security, and speculation runs rampant as to why there are extra guards on duty; Danny figures there's a more discreet way to do this, probably, without tipping off the entire school to the fact that something is going down, but then he's not a cop.Not even close.

 

Abby and Katie still have no idea that anything has happened, so they go along easily enough to class, Katie lingering only long enough for her customary pep talk, and for Danny to put her hair in pigtails.  

 

He notices that Mattie walks maybe a little closer to him than he usually does on their way over to the high school, but he doesn't attempt conversation, and Danny doesn't push it.

 

He swaps seats with Lori Weston in American history, but if Steve notices he doesn't say anything.What he does do is watch Danny out of the corner of his eye the whole class; Danny can feel his gaze on the back of his neck, and it makes him think about Steve's hands in the same place, tugging him down on top of a warm body, which - this is really not the opportune time for those sorts of thoughts.  

 

He eats lunch out by the baseball diamond, kicking his sneakers in the thick sod, footprints trailing behind him as he walks the bases.He'd love to have a bat in his hand, to be able to smash a baseball as far as he could, out towards the desert horizon and away into the stratosphere.Instead he kicks, and his toe connects with home plate - it sends a small twinge of pain up through his foot.

 

There's a Marshal watching him from the back door of the main building of the school, his hands clasped in front of him.He appears impervious to the blaring sunlight in his thick security uniform and aviators.

 

Danny's phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out with one hand, the other occupied by half a grilled cheese sandwich.It's a text from Steve: _where r u?_

 

Danny knows he should just stick the damn thing back in his pocket.Instead, he types out a quick reply: _busy._

 

The phone buzzes less than a minute later: _not what i asked._  

 

Danny sighs, because he was hoping there wouldn't be a confrontation, since, you know, he likes his feelings where they are - trapped in a TNT-armed box and held down under a comically-large boulder, like something out of Looney Toons.

 

_emergency exit staircase. north side._

 

The Marshal's eyes follow him back towards the building as he stuffs the rest of his sandwich down in one bite.Danny has the urge to flip him off, but instead he just offers a nod in acknowledgement, which the man doesn't deign to return, since he's supposed to be on the down-low and all that.  

 

The north side emergency exit is in a sort of half-alcove built into the corner of the main high school building, out of view of the front of the school; kids come out here to hook up, light up, and just about everything else, but thankfully there's no one there when Danny comes cruising around the corner.  

 

He knocks twice on the door, and Steve opens it from the inside, emergency alarm deactivated, since apparently that's something they teach you in Hawaii.  

 

Steve looks worried, and the back of his polo's collar is popped up -it's nothing unusual, Danny and Catherine have to fix it for him all the time, because he's stubborn - Danny's Maui Jims hanging from his shirt collar.

 

"Hey," says Danny.His voice sounds strange, and it catches a bit on that one tiny word."Look, I uh - "

 

Steve yanks him inside by the arm, swinging the door closed deftly behind them.He's kissing him before Danny registers what's happening, pressing him back against the door, flush from chests to knees, his hands warm on Danny's waist through his shirt.Danny's mouth falls open of its own accord, and his breath whooshes out of his lungs, his hands curled lightly into the hem of Steve's shirt.

 

Steve's lips disappear from Danny's, and then reappear under Danny's jawline, gentling at his skin, and is Steve lightning-quick or is Danny operating on some sort of visual-sensory delay?  

 

He gets his wits about him long enough to say weakly, "Hey, doofus, I _ah -_ I gotta talk to you."

 

Steve hums against his neck, and then - oh God - there's his tongue, on the soft underside of Danny's chin."Fuck," Danny says eloquently."Fuck, Steve, c'mon. _Talking_ , buddy."

 

"You go right ahead and talk all you want, Danno," Steve murmurs.He's moved up to Danny's earlobe, worrying it between his teeth and that shouldn't be good but _geez._

 

Though it pains him to do so, Danny grabs Steve by the head and pulls him back far enough to look him straight in the face - well, he's looking up a bit, actually, but he always seems to be looking up, since he's all of five foot five.Steve looks at him with an expression on his face like he's about to argue, so Danny kisses him once, hard, on the mouth, to shut him up, and tells himself it's not at all because of the dumb way Steve's hair is stuck up in the back.

 

Danny smooths his thumbs over Steve's cheeks, like he can pet him into submission."Alright, Steve, I've got some issues," he starts."You know, family stuff, family shit."

 

There's the sound of a door opening somewhere above them, echoing down the stairwell.They fall silent, backing up out of view, if anyone were to glance downwards, but sharp footsteps on the stairs continue for only a few seconds, before another door opens and closes, and whoever it was is gone.

 

"I told you," Steve jumps on the opportunity that the silence provides."Whatever it is, we can deal with it, okay?"

 

Danny forces himself to let his hands fall from Steve's face; they almost catch on his shoulders, but somehow he gets them all the way down to his sides."Yeah, I can deal with it," he says."But I have to deal with it alone, 'cause ah - " _because it's dangerous, life-threatening, so stressful he could cry, sometimes_ \- "it's really a family thing, Steve."

 

Steve's face falls, and Danny hears Katie at the kitchen counter yesterday morning, saying _ohana_.  

 

* * *

 

Steve starts giving Danny space, little by little.

 

First he stops getting _good morning, sunshine_ texts, and updates about surf conditions on the north shore on Oahu.Steve stops stealing his Shakespeare notes - he takes Catherine's instead - and Danny finds his sunglasses sitting in his locker on top of a stack of textbooks.Danny still sits with the gang at lunch, but he finds a spot across from Steve, tucked in next to Gabrielle Asano at the end of the table; he steers clear of the senior bonfires, and he hears secondhand that Steve's doing the same.

 

Danny's got a weird feeling, like a phantom limb; he keeps turning over his shoulder to talk to someone who isn't there, leaning sideways in his chair only to find Gabrielle looking at him funny.  

 

The nightmares get worse, Steve's face gets thrown into the mix, his body riddled with bullets and the light gone out of his eyes, the crazy smile gone from his face.Danny wakes up screaming into his pillow one night, the sound muffled somewhat, and when he turns over, breathing heavy to keep his lungs from going out of control, Kalakaua is standing in the door with her sidearm drawn.  

 

She doesn't leave right away, lingering in the hall outside his room.

 

Danny croaks, "Do they stop, eventually?"

 

Kalakaua smiles a small, knowing smile."No," she says."But you learn how to handle them.How to slay your demons before they slay you." 

 

He doesn't see Steve for a week after that night.It's not that he avoids him - Steve just seems to disappear from every room Danny's in, answers his texts with monosyllabic abreviations, puts the kind of distance between them that feels like _New Jersey-Hawaii_ distance.Danny thinks Steve probably has it figured out - the fact that Danny's in WITSEC and he's a walking timebomb, bound to go off from cabin fever or external violence.

 

Most of their friends skirt him too, until it's a Friday in the end of February and Catherine corners him in the men's room, with a complete disregard for the mental wellbeing of the poor kid taking a piss in the corner. 

 

She comes right up to him at the sink and crosses her arms over her chest, squishing her boobs up out of her respectable black tank top.She's got a look like she's on a warpath, which Danny knows from experience can never mean anything good."Alright," she says, "what the hell did you do?"

 

Danny grabs a few paper towels and starts drying his hands off, failing to make eye contact with her even though he knows it's a sure tell that he's lying."Huh?"

 

The kid taking a piss runs for the hills.Catherine barely glances in his direction."You know exactly what I'm talking about, Danny," she snaps."You broke Steve."

 

Danny rolls up the sodden papertowels and pegs them at the trash can hard, like he's throwing a pitch."Steve's fine, Cath."

 

Catherine raises a singular eyebrow that indicates she does not agree."No, Danny, he's not fine," she says."He's three times as reckless as he usually is, and he's sulking."Danny drags a hand over his face, turning away from Catherine to face the far wall of the bathroom."I already gave you the _break his heart I'll break your neck_ speech, so I think you've had fair warning."

 

"Trust me, he's better off as far away from me as he can get."

 

"Come on, Danny," she shoots back incredulously, "really?"

 

Danny points a finger at her, like he can zap her away."You have no idea - "

 

"He's in _love_ with you, Danny!" Catherine exclaims.Her arms uncross, and she gestures wildly, bookbag swinging from her shoulder."He just wants to spend as much time with you as he can before he has to leave, I don't see why you can't give him that!"

 

Danny looks at her slowly.Part of her rant is registering slightly in the back of his brain, like a pinging emergency beacon on the flight deck - _mayday, mayday, we're going down_."Wait," he says quietly.

 

Catherine has no intention of waiting for anything."And you love him, too, obviously.Christ, Danny, you're so dumb, you make each other so happy and somehow you're still all high and mighty with your _family problems_ \- "

 

"Cath, _wait_ ," Danny barks.She falls silent, and he capitalizes on the opportunity, "Steve's leaving?"

 

She looks confused."What, you don't know?" she asks, and when Danny shakes his head, "Steve's going back to Honolulu at the end of the school year."

 

The floor drops out of Danny's world, and he closes his eyes briefly.When he opens them, Catherine's watching him with a vague expression of concern, and he manages to breeze past her out of the men's room without any trouble.

 

* * *

 

Danny's month starts out like this - 

 

Steve basically drops off the face of the earth.Danny sees him once, in the hallway, Catherine on one side and Lori on the other, his eyes red and wet, collar popped because he's got no one there to smooth it down for him.Catherine and Lori spirit him away before Danny can do something stupid, like go to him - go to him and leave them all at risk, to hell with it.

 

He refuses to process the fact that Steve's leaving, which - okay, Danny's read all the self-help books, just in case there was something in there that would help with Mattie, and he knows it's not healthy to stay in denial, but he's always lived on the corner of stubborn and self-sacrificing, so whatever.

 

He dreams that he and Steve are in bed, dozing, feet tangled in the hems of each other's pants, hands trapped by Danny's bedsheet across their torsos.Danny's arms are around Steve's waist, his face pressed into Steve's neck, and it's probably the most peaceful he's ever felt, the draw of Steve's breath lulling him into a content slumber.

 

Screaming wakes them, usually Katie, sometimes Abby, Mattie on really bad nights.Danny will shoot out of bed in two seconds flat, Steve waking up more slowly behind him, rubbing his eyes and blinking in confusion, even though he must already know what this is.

 

Danny barrels down the hallway, but before he can get anywhere, there are faceless men pouring towards him, brandishing Tommy guns and screaming in Italian, and he doesn't understand a word of it, despite his grandmother's lessons when he was little.The screaming has stopped, and Danny can only fear the worst, because the worst is what he's wired for - no sunshine and roses and glass-half-full.  

 

Steve finally comes stumbling out of the room after Danny, and the men open fire.The always miss Danny with every shot, and he knows it's not possible but it feels real - when he looks down at himself there are no bullets, just Steve's Tommy Bahama tee shirt, which is way too big for him, and - 

 

Steve falls to the ground behind him, convulsing with the force of the machine gun fire, and Danny falls to his knees, mobsters forgotten, sobs wracking deep in his chest before he's even realized what's happened.  

 

It can go on for what feels like hours, just that part, him holding onto Steve's dying body, the house deathly silent, the mobsters disappeared like smoke in the night.

 

Thank God that Danny feels a hand on his shoulder, and he comes gently awake, his eyelids fluttering.

 

Kelly is standing over him, looking concerned.Danny gets a cold feeling in his gut that tells him it isn't because of his nightmare - Kelly and Kalakaua are both well used to the fact that Danny sleeps no more than three hours most nights.This is something different - Kelly's in full uniform, a suit and cheap tie, his sidearm holstered at his side, badge on his belt.

 

Danny sits up from the couch, where he'd fallen asleep watching Nickelodeon with Katie, his back aching.Katie's gone, her triceratops left behind by Danny's feet.The rest of the living area is silent as well, except for the distant sound of Mattie's high-volume Black Sabbath drifting down the stairs.

 

"What's happening?" Danny asks.

 

Kelly looks grave."Kono took the girls out for ice cream an hour or so ago," he says.Danny's stomach just about drops through his feet, because there's an ice cream shop like five minutes away, and it shouldn't have taken them more than twenty minutes to pop out and come back."There was reported positive ID on the brother of one of the defendants in your mother's case."

 

Danny scrambles to stand up from the couch.He's not quite sure where he's going - probably to grab the baseball bat he managed to hang on to and storm the ice cream stand, jump in front of bullets, whatever it takes - 

 

Kelly puts a steadying hand on his shoulder."Relax, Danny, they're fine.Kono got them out before the brother spotted them.They're at the Marshal's office now.I just wanted you to know what was going on."  

 

Danny's mind is running at a million miles an hour through all the variables, all the possibilities.They might have to move again, they might be assigned different supervising agents, their mother might be in danger, the house might be surrounded as they speak."I'll get Mattie," he says.

 

He turns to leave, but Kelly grabs him by the arm to pull him back."We have instructions to stay here for now," he says, his tone authoritative like he's already planning on having to whip out the big _I'm a federal agent_ guns.

 

"Why on earth not?"

 

"There's nothing to indicate right now that they have any confirmation that they've found us," Kelly explains calmly."Moving could notify them of our position, if they don't know it already, or it could let them know that we're on to them.Right now, it's safer for everyone if we stay put."

 

Danny looks down at the triceratops sitting on the end of the sofa.He can't remember the last time Katie spent a night without it - not since she was an infant, at least, before she bonded with the damn thing by putting diapers on it and bows in its horns.

 

Kelly notices his aprehension."Look, Danny," he says, "your mother's court date is in three days.After that, we'll be able to put all these guys away for a long time, probably forever."

 

Danny smiles slightly."But we won't be able to go back, ever."

 

Kelly fixes his with a skeptical eye."Would you really want to?"

 

Danny thinks of blood on the carpet of their Jersey house, of Steve's smile in the Arizona halflight, of Katie and Abby bobbing around this house with Mattie looking on disapprovingly from his post guarding his Hot Pocket in the microwave."No," he says, "I guess not."

 

* * *

 

By the time Kelly goes to bed, his button down undone at the top and rolled up at the sleeves, tie loose around his neck, Danny has a half-cocked plan forming vaguely in his mind.  

 

He knocks quietly on Mattie's door, his knuckles rustling the homemade paper _Keep Out_ sign taped across it.Mattie hasn't asked what's going on, but he knows something's up, probably - Kalakaua and the girls haven't come home yet, and it's approaching eleven p.m. already.He swings the door open fairly easily, given the usual tactics of bribery that Danny has to resort to to even see his brother's face.

 

"I need to borrow your computer," Danny says.  

 

Mattie looks skeptical, his expression hidding somewhere in the jungle of his uncut hair."Why?"

 

Danny does his best big brother stare-down."Homework," he says, and does not elaborate, because he's lying quite blatantly.

 

Mattie disappears into the depths of his room and returns with his MacBook, which is covered all over with band stickers and slogans that Danny has no idea about, like _Who is John Galt?_ Danny takes it and turns to leave, but Mattie stops him - 

 

"They're alright, right?"

 

Danny looks back, and for the first time in a couple of years he sees his little brother, fourteen years old and scared by the world, his shoulders slim and his voice still squeaky, not a rebellious bone in his body."Yeah, Mattie," he says quietly."They're fine.You're all going to be fine."

 

Back in his bedroom, he pulls up the yellow pages for the Phoenix-Scottsdale area, and finds the address of a bar called Abadelli's.It's downtown, not too far, with the exact same logo as the one back in Newark that his dad used to hang out in on the weekend, a much younger Danny sometimes swept along with him.

 

* * *

 

Kelly really should leave the keys to the minivan somewhere Danny can't just pick them up and leave - id est, the front table out in the entryway.Almost as an afterthought, he grabs Katie's triceratops, sticking it under his arm as he jogs out into the driveway.The night air feels cold, which is a pretty good indication of how used to the warm climate Danny has gotten.  

 

He drives to the Marshals' office in silence, the streetlights flashing by in his peripheral vision.He hasn't driven on his own for a while - he doesn't even have a driver's license in the name of _Danny Williams_ yet - and his hands feel strange on the steering wheel, but at the same time he feels a little bit free.

 

Minivan parked four blocks away, he nips in and out of the Marshals' office lobby as fast as he can - the nightguard is thankfully absent, in the bathroom or something - leaving the triceratops on the counter.They'll probably screen it for explosives or something, and if it blows up and sprays stuffing everywhere then they'll be able to track him down in a moment with their video records, and if that happens he'll go willingly.  

 

He makes his mind up at the last minute to loop back to Steve's house.

 

It's darkened, not a single light on inside.Danny feels almost guilty for coming here, disturbing Steve's peace in the middle of the night, but he feels like he probably deserves a break by now.He's not entirely sure why he's there, but he knows that he has to say something, because if Steve weren't the love of his life Danny would've forgotten him by now in favor of more attention-demanding things, like the mob hit that's probably out on his family's life, and the fact that his father is on the fast track to prison.

 

It starts raining as he gets out of the car, which is just about Danny's luck.He hightails it up to the front door, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up around his head, minivan keys jingling in his pocket, but his phone left back on his desk at home.

 

He's pretty sure the doorbell would wake Steve's uncle, so he pulls open the glass door and knocks on the wooden one a few times instead.Danny knows Steve's room is closest to the front hallway, from the few times he's been invited over for haphazard macaroni and cheese and a go at Wii Sports, which Steve uses to occupy himself on lonely, rainy days.

 

Danny counts his lucky stars that Steve comes to the door.He swings it open and he's standing there in his boxer shorts and that same Tommy Bahama tee shirt, his hair mussed up around his head, so Danny just wants to run his fingers through it.Danny shivers slightly, and Steve looks so warm.

 

Steve meets Danny's gaze warily, but there's that flash of daring in his eyes that makes Danny's heart thwap irregularly in his chest."Danno," says Steve groggily, "what - "

 

"I, uh - " Danny starts.He bounces uncomfortably on his feet, hands stuffed into his sweatshirt pockets, rain soaking through the shoulders of his sweatshirt to the tee shirt underneath."I know this is really selfish of me to show up like this, Steve, really I do, but I, uh, I just have to say it once, okay?"

 

Steve takes a small step towards him, his _live-on-the-edge_ spirit egging him on.He opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but Danny cuts him off before he can, words spilling out of his mouth with no control.

 

"Look, Steve, I ended up here under some pretty extraordinary circumstances, alright? And I'm not saying that my problems are more important than yours, but really, my problems are a heck of a lot more serious than yours, and I figured, while I was here all of my problems would take precedent, and all that, but then you show up.And Steve, Christ, you're the craziest son of a bitch I've ever met, okay, but - despite my goddamn best efforts to the contrary, because this is really stupid, so monumentally stupid - I've kind of gone and - well, I guess I've gone and fallen in love with you, you doofus."

 

Steve's mouth falls open, and he still looks sleepy, but he's definitely more awake now.Danny is attuned to every breath he takes, every little unconscious twitch of his fingers against his bare thigh.The rain pours hard on the awning above their heads, staining the sand all around them dark brown, the humidity making Steve's hair frizz up.

 

Danny doesn't wait for Steve to reply.He knows for a fact that Steve isn't possessed of enough brain cells in the wee hours of the morning to string together a coherent sentence, let alone fumble through a response to Danny's rant.  

 

Steve is pliant under Danny's hug; he wraps his arms tight around Steve's shoulders, his cheek pressing into Steve's jaw, because while Steve's still growing Danny's not going anywhere.Steve's arms come up hesitantly, and then he's hugging Danny back, giving as good as he's getting, his breathing quick against the back of Danny's neck.  

 

They stand like that for who knows how long - no more than a couple of minutes - swaying in the doorway to Steve's house.Eventually, Danny pulls back, and Steve's giving him the biggest, saddest puppydog eyes that Danny's ever seen, like he's got the weight of worlds on his shoulders, like he can't keep standing - but still he lets Danny leave, driving off towards the city in Kelly's Honda Odyssey.

 

Abadelli's isn't difficult to find.Danny's not surprised - mobsters like to hide in plain sight, use intimidation to keep the police away instead of any real attempts at secrecy.There's even a neon sign out by the road, marking the entrance to the parking lot, which contains only a few cars at this late hour.

 

Danny feels numb.  

 

Revision: he feels nothing but Steve's breath on the back of his neck still, a comforting presence in his decision.  

 

He sits back in the driver's seat, parked in the far side of the parking lot from the bar entrance.He closes his eyes, and pictures his family's faces, smiling and happy and _alive_.  

 

The car door opens and closes quickly, before he can make up his mind to drive back to the house and pretend like none of this hairbrained scheme ever popped into his head.He locks the keys in the car, because he doesn't need to add grand theft auto or property damage to the list of felonies he's about to rack up, and he doesn't want Kelly to have any extra expenses, after everything he's done for them.  

 

A bell above the front door chimes when he enters, alerting the entire patronage to his arrival.A few men sitting at the bar look up at him, but go back to their drinks quickly; Danny figures they're probably not who he's looking for.  

 

There are a group of men seated in a booth at the back, laughing uproariously about something and knocking back beers by what looks like the dozen, their feet up on the table.Danny doesn't think he recognizes anyone, but they have the distinct devil-may-care arrogance of mobsters, and the man sitting on the end of the booth has his suit flap open to reveal a holstered gun, some old revolver.  

 

Danny swallows his fear of death and walks back to them.They watch him like predators as he approaches, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, because there's something like recognition in some of their eyes.

 

"What do you want, kid?" one of them demands.Danny recongnizes a thick Jersey accent, sure as day.

 

He clears his throat like he's got an obstruction, but really he's just stalling, building up courage."I'm Danny Pietri," he says.His voice is strong, and for that he's impossibly glad."I'd like to make a deal."

 

* * *

 

Danny's month ends like this - 

 

The last thing he remembers is talking to the mobsters.They were in the back room of Abadelli's, sitting around a card table like they were about to play Russian roulette, like Danny had a chance of maybe walking out of there.  

 

"My kids, they don't know anything," Danny's insisting."I'm the only one who saw anything, that night.I wouldn't let them come down until the police had cleaned everything up."

 

One of the mobsters looks to the another one and nods."No tricks?" the guy asks."Swear it on your family's life."

 

Danny swallows."No tricks.I swear."

 

The mobsters all stand at once, jolting the card table in Danny's direction.

 

He remembers closing his eyes, and he remembers gunshots.

 

He wakes up in a bed at St. Joseph's hospital, feeling like there's an elephant sitting on his chest.All he can see at first is just a wash of pristine white, intercepted by some serene landscape portraits on the walls, and by the tall grey form of the door.

 

Someone's face swims into view.Danny registers the _blip-blip-blip-blip_ of a heart monitor, and it washes out his theory of being gone for good, of everything being resolved and everyone being safe, and maybe a little bit wiser for it.The face disappears again, and Danny hears as if through a the Atlantic ocean what he later interprets as, "He's up, Steve."

 

There is what Danny is certain is a significant commotion in the hallway, and then a familiar, lanky form comes trundling in through the door, rushing to the side of Danny's bed.He's almost lucid enough to make eye contact; in his peripheral vision, there's an IV bag hanging on a pole, which is probably what's keeping him loopy.

 

"Christ, Danny," says Steve, "and you said I was the reckless one."

 

Danny smiles a little, and laughs, which is the biggest mistake he's made in life thus far.Steve hurries to get him a glass of water while he's wheezing and hacking and generally making unattractive noises, doubled over while still laying down.The water soothes Danny's dry throat, enough that he can say, "I distinctly recall you skateboarding off of Max's roof, so before you go and reprimand me - "

 

"You could've told me you were in Witness Protection, you know."

 

Danny's eyes do not so much as widen, because he'd thought Steve had it figured out a while ago."No, Steven, I couldn't have.That's kind of the point of Witness Protection, don't you think?"

 

Steve sits down heavily in a chair next to Danny's bed.There are three there, all lined up in a row, one with Highlights magazine issues piled up on it, a Magic Treehouse book the icing on the cake.Steve looks worse than Danny's ever seen him - worse than that one time in the hallway, worse than the one night they got drunk at a bonfire and Steve told Danny all about his sister Mary, living in Seattle with his grandmother.

 

Steve looks like he's going to say something profound.Instead, the only thing that comes out of his mouth is, "You're really stupid, Danno, you know that?"

 

Danny can't stop smiling for the life of him."So I've been told."

 

"You're supposed to let the professionals handle this kind of thing," Steve continues, bull-headed and determined to get his point across.He's somehow gorgeous in the flourescent lighting, which is a goddamn miracle."I mean, your crazy plan worked, believe it or not, by no fault of your own, but - "

 

"What happened?" Danny interjects.

 

Steve looks at him longsufferingly, like Danny's done something to deserve his annoyance, which he hasn't, thank you very much."Mattie decided to go through your search history, and your uncle came to the rescue."

 

"Thank God for Uncle Williams," Danny declares.

 

"Yeah," Steve laughs lightly, "yeah, really, thank God."

 

Steve leans over Danny's bed, and for a moment he lingers so close that Danny could probably count the tributary scars on his old broken nose, if he were really that interested in the finer points of Steve's medical history.Instead, he's more interested in the press of Steve's lips against his, the hand in the back of his hair, the way the kiss somehow opens up his lungs instead of making his breathing worse.

 

They break apart long enough for Steve to say, "You got shot, by the way."

 

"I guessed as much."

 

Danny puts his mouth back on Steve's, and it feels impossibly good just to have him so close, to have Steve's heat wafting over him, Steve's tongue flat against the roof of his mouth, grounding.  

 

Steve pulls back too quickly, looking remorseful that he can't continue anything further, which - it's probably not a great idea to try to fuck in a hospital cot with a gunshot wound in his chest, but Danny's willing to try new experiences, at least in that area of study."Marshal Kelly went to get the girls and Mattie," Steve says, "they were down in the cafeteria, so it shouldn't take long."

 

Indeed, the cocophany of girls, plus Mattie, burst in through the door not a moment later, loud and bright and bearing gifts, namely balloons and chocolate bars that Danny's not allowed to eat.Katie bounces up onto his lap - he manages to hide an _oof_ of pain - Abby tells him all about the book she's been reading to him while he was asleep, Mattie sulks in the corner, none of them are scared, and all is right with the world.

 

Kalakaua says to him much later, when Katie and Abby have been taken home to sleep, and Mattie has retreated to the hallway to play on his handheld gaming whatever, "We're going to have to move again."

 

Danny looks at Steve, dozing on the edge of Danny's bed."Anything in Honolulu?" he asks.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from the funeral by band of horses
> 
> if anyone knows a quick and easy way to get rid of double spaces in between paragraphs, i'm all ears


End file.
